The Ringer-Verse - ‘The Flash’ Instant Reactions | The Midnight Boys

Episode Date: June 16, 2023

The time has finally come. The Midnight Boys are here to move at light speed and give their instant reactions to the latest DC film, ‘The Flash’ (06:33). They break down the things they liked and what didn't work so well, then make their assessment of this highly anticipated blockbuster. Later they run up "the gas bill" and evaluate the high praise Hollywood power players gave the film (73:18) as well as give it their Midnight Meter ranking (80:28). Hosts: Van Lathan, Charles Holmes, Steve Ahlman, and Jomi Adeniran Social: Jomi Adeniran Senior Producer: Steve Ahlman Additional Production Support: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Erica Ramirez, founder of Ili, and hosts of What About Your Friends? A podcast dedicated to the many lives of friendship and how it's portrayed in pop culture. Every Wednesday on the ringer dish feed, I talk to my best friend Stephen Othello and your favorites from within the ringer and beyond about friendships on TV and movies, pop culture and our real lives. So join me every Wednesday on the ringer dish feed where we try to answer the question TLCS asked back in the day, what about your friends? For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matter. Tramphia offers self-injection or intravenous infusion from the start. Tramphia is administered as injections under the skin or infusions through a vein every four weeks, followed by injections under the skin every four or eight weeks.

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Call 1-800-526-7736 to learn more or visit Trimfairadio.com. This episode is brought to by the Active Cash Credit Card from Wells Fargo. That's a mouthful, but that's because it packs a lot in. Earn unlimited 2% cash rewards on purchases with it, big or small. So whether it's buying tickets to the game and grabbing a coffee, it earns unlimited 2% cash rewards on purchases. Say it with me, the active cash credit card from Wells Fargo, be a 2%er.

Learn more at Wells Fargo.com forward slash active cash terms of play. Welcome into the Ringiverse. This is, of course, the ringer's nexus podcast fee for all Things fandom, we are. Jomi, the explainer at dinner on, you've got questions, he's got answers. We are. Steve, the architect, almond, the builder and tinker of things.

We are old man fan. He of the Miami Hairline. Welcome to Miami. We are. Cote Baby Chuck. Galaxy Brain, aka the 24-carried closer, aka the brunch holiday. Together, we are known as a midnight, boys.

Follow us on socials. Insta Twitter, Facebook, TikTok. Jomey needs the Selina S7. It's been going up on socials. You know, everyone wants to talk to us about everything. We have brand new additions to the universe team. Jessica Clemens was on with Min Edition. It was fantastic.

It was a draft. Okay, over on the House of R. I saw the results of the draft real quick. You guys give me your impressions of the House of Our draft over there, the Spider-Man. all Spider-Man built this perfect Spider-Man thing draft. What did you guys think real quick? That was really competitive.

You know, a lot of choices. You know, they always do. That was the prince or princess who was promised. Like, she's inevitable in terms of competition. I would not want to draft against her. I thought Joe had a better draft. When I looked at it, when I looked at it at first, I was like, that's a clear mild dub.

But then I came back, I even voted for Mal. And when I looked at it, I think that some of me just voting for Mal was reputation. Oh. Momentum. Put that bias aside. Yeah. It was a very fun episode.

Very fun episode, though. On Sunday, a minute edition will be giving you guys their thoughts on Pixar's latest movie Elemental. which I didn't realize was a real movie until maybe like... Yeah, that says a lot about the state of Pixar. Yeah, I didn't realize that was a thing. I was interviewing somebody else, and they were like, Pixar's dropping.

I was like, oh, okay, yeah, it's going back and forth with the two different elements, whatever, and now I realize that it's a movie coming out. So you guys got that coming up. Did you got to see? Was it good? It was very good. I loved it.

Oh. All right. So pick a return to form? for Pixar, if they've ever been off of form is what you guys. They've been off a form for them. I don't know if it's a return to form. I think that this is probably the highest of their recent crop, for sure. For sure.

You know, we don't talk about Pixar in the same way that we talk about the MCU in terms of production houses that had an unbelievable run. Oh, my God. We talk about this on the top, but like the first like 10 Pixar movies is an insane run. Like, it's understandable. Is it one of the best runs in all of Hollywood? Like, I think there's like one miss there, but like that's about it. What's the miss? What's the miss? It's not, car.

It's not a miss. The original cars? The original cars is not a miss. I don't think the original cars is a miss. I think cars too. I think car, see, this is what they do. This is what they do. I got hyperbole homes.

It's not, is not, even if it is a miss, it's not a huge miss. Cars two, I think is a miss. Absolutely. But the original cars is not a miss. It's like, okay, you want, you want the run? Because I can give you the run right now. Give me the run real quick. Okay.

1995, Toy Story. 1998, Bug's Life. 1999, Toy Story 2. 2001, Monsters Inc. 2003, Finding Nemo. 2004, Incredibles. 2006 cars. 2007, Rattatooey.

2008, Wally. 2009 up. 2010, Toy Story 3. Then we get to Cars 2. No, we got to stop. We cook. Up ain't as good as people. All right, let's go.

Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. We don't have time for it. I don't want to do it. I don't want to do it. I don't want to do it. I don't want to do it.

Because you're being this way on purpose. You're getting into character early is what you're doing. I don't want to do it. Seriously, because you're about to piss me off. All right. All right. Then we next week will give you a full week of secret invasion extravaganza. Midnight Boys on Wednesday.

Instant reactions to. Secret Invasions, which I hear is the greatest show that's ever been made. And House of R on Friday, I didn't hear that. House of R on Friday is coming back with their deep dive. So we're getting right back to the standard format. Secret Invasion is on the docket. Check in with the Midnight Boys on Wednesday. Instant reaction.

Check in with the House of R on Friday, their deep dive. but on today's show we're solidly in instant reaction territory because we're giving you instant reactions for DC's latest salvo the flash. Let's go! Let's fucking go.

Charles is ready. Charles is ready. Look at him. He's all riled up. I can feel it in his blood. He's ready to move all through the speed force. Okay, look. We're going to be spoiling everything in the DC. Thus far, we're going to be spoiling everything about DC Comics thus far. We might spoil some things that you haven't seen or read yet that are pertinent to this film. This film is taking from a lot of different parts of the DC universe and then some parts of the DCEU. All right.

That being said, Steve, give me a spoiler warning. We're getting ready to talk about the flash. You're listening to a reaction podcast. The spoilers are a comment. comment. All right. As always, we begin our reactions with the Midnight Manifest talking about all the need to know about the flash. Chuck Waggon, take it away. Yeah, sorry, guys. I made an executive decision. There will be no Midnight Manifest for this episode. The Midnight Manifest is a privilege and not a right. And I will not sell something that I've built with this movie. Oh, God. I don't think you can do this.

I can make an executive decision. I can do that. I'm not making a manifest for this movie. Fuck out of here. Oh, okay. Wait, wait, so we just, hold on. Hold on. You know, Iarily decide not to tell the people what's going on in the movie.

Like, what's going on here? Charles. They can read the Wikipedia. I'm not doing this. I believe in the Midnight Manifest too much to Sully its great name with this movie. What were your instant reaction? To this movie. Yeah, I just got off the phone and Bill Simmons told me directly that we need a midnight manifest.

So sorry, Charles, but you're going to have to make one happen. So the powers at B said that I am contractually obligated to do a midnight manifest for the Flash. Directed by Andy Michetti, written by Christina Hodson, story by John Francis Daley, Jonathan Gold, Joby Harold. We begin with, after saving a hospital, full of babies and helping Batman avert a bank robbery, Barry Allen goes back to his crappy life. His mom is dead, his father's wrongly in prison for murder,

he's late for work and has no friends. Barry realizes he can run back in time, and against the visions of Back Black, traverses the multiverse to a world where his mother is still alive. After trying to avert his mother's death and go back to his timeline, Barry is pushed out by a mysterious figure. Then Barry meets his younger self,

tries to give him powers, and then the process loses his own. The two Barry's meet Michael Keaton's Batman, who explains the multiverse to the duo for some inexplicable reason. The Trail Mountain Rescue Mission to find this world, Superman, after Zod from Man of Steel, threatens to dominate the earth. The trail finds Superman's cousin, Kara Zorrell instead. The newly formed Justice League fights Zod and his minions, yada, yada, yada, a bunch of bullshit happens.

Batman dies, so does Supergirl, young Barry turns evil. It tries to save his new friends. Then in a twist, it's revealed that the young Barry was the evil speedster that initially pushed out Old Barry out of the timeline. Started all of these shenanigans in the first place. A goal is tripped through the multiverse ensues. There's Christopher Reeve, Nicholas Cage, Jay Garrick. Older Berry and Younger Berry realize that sometimes you can't win it all.

And Younger Barry's reality dies as Older Berry travels back to his time where his father is set free. And that has been your In-Night Manifest for The Flash. Okay, okay, incident reactions. Credits roll. I'm with my friends. Yes. Yeah. Jomey and Steve Set the scene

Set the scene AMC At the Grove Okay Used to be Pacific But things happened Pandemics At the Grove

Hanging out And with my bros Jomey's there Steve's there We're all sitting together On the aisle Just like I like Okay

Watching the movie Critics role Jome and Steve can attest My first impression was I like it. The first thing that gets said out of my mouth, my beautiful, pretty mouth, is I liked it. Didn't say that it was perfect, didn't say that it was great. Hell, I could see how some of you guys could say that it wasn't even good. All right? I thought it was good. I really liked the movie.

That was my first impression. And it's nothing more or anything less than that. Charles, your first impression. Now before we go, play stop the cap. How could it be stopped the cap? I don't know if I can stop the caps. I don't think we can stop the cap here. I don't think we can stop the cap.

We are not that, we are not that far removed from Spider-Man across the Spider-verse. What difference is that? And everything you said about that movie. Can I say something here? Can I say something here? Can I say something here?

Can I say something here, like, as this relates to this, you know what I've decided not to do on this podcast? Is the performative liking or disliking of things? This is what I've, come to learn about myself. I'm a complicated person. I'm a big milk dud. Floating around in space.

Okay? Made up of all these different... But I'm saying, I, for whatever reason, I liked this movie more than I thought it would. And for whatever reason, I didn't like across the Spider-Verse quite as much as I thought I did. even I thought I would even though I really liked it. I really liked the flash.

Charles, go ahead. Rain on me. All right, yo, turn me up in my headphones, Steve. Because y'all, what, like, what part of the game is this movie? For real? We grave robbing now. We desecrating the memories that we have as a culture for this? For this?

Like, come on, y'all. All respect to everybody. Like, I just want to let y'all know. I come from the flash trenches. If you asked me as a child, who was your favorite hero? I would have said Wally West, man. When everybody was out living their euphoria dreams as a teenager, I was a little twerp in his bedroom,

in fucking Flash comics, okay? This movie could have been great. But what we got was a big pile of dog doo-doo that the entire world tried to convince me for two years was a fucking cupcake. This is your instant reaction? Yes, it is. It is my instant reaction.

It's credits roll and he's saying all of this. Credence's role and you're thinking about I'm Wally West and the Kansas case. The entire movie. This is the first movie in my existence as an adult where I almost fell asleep. Not because I was tired because I was exhausted from watching

what was unfolding on the screen, man. Like, this movie hurt me. Like, spiritually. I needed to be baptized after this movie to get the fucking stink off of me. You're dragging it. No, no, no. So you're going to bring up across the Spiderverse. You went ape shit over venom, let there be carnage.

Like, you're dragging it. You're like, you, bro. Like, you're dragging it. He got you there. He got you there. I feel you, bro. I feel you. To be fair,

but to be fair, I showed my ass for how long for that fucking Black Adam movie, you know me. Like, my, my thermometer for bullshit

is really high, bro. You know what I'm saying? I'm not a perfect human. But I walked out of this movie. Like, I came home, my girlfriend's like, yo,

what's wrong? You look like somebody, like somebody just killed your dog. And I'm just like, bro, they did. Shut up. What? I was high.

Right. Shut up. Men boys. Am I tripping? Man, you know, life, you know. Life is complicated.

Hey. Just fucking talk about it. What the fuck is happening, bro? Bro, what the fuck is going on? Look, I mean, the long and short of it is, I did not enjoy this movie that much. I think there are some good things in there, but the stuff that they double down on and triple down on,

none of it works. It kind of stinks, to be quite honest with you. And it brings down what could have been like just like a, oh, what a solid entry. Like what a way to finish out the DC EU. Wow. But they could go so in on stuff that just does not work at all that it brings down a movie that could have,

been pretty good. I'm kind of with you there, Jomey. I think I'm just a little bit more positive on it. While I didn't think that it was an outright disaster, there were a lot of things that do not work. There are a lot of things that feel in hindsight, borderline offensive.

In hindsight, offensive? In the theater, I was about to throw tomatoes at the screen. In the moment, I was like, okay. And they don't make any sense. Right. It's no sense. But like, we'll get to that, but I think the fact that, like, I came away with the sentiment being like the bones are there. The structure of a movie that could be very good and even great is there.

It does not rise to that occasion, but I think that there are very good and charming elements to this that can be discussed and remembered. But overall, it does not work. But there are some good things here. Okay, well, let's get into this. Charles, I'll come to you first. What does work about the movie?

Positive corner. Positive corner. What does work? So to Steve's point, like, I do think that, like, there are good bones to this movie. I was watching it and I was just like, okay, like, for the first couple, like, 20, 30 minutes. I was just like, okay, all right, I'm vibing. I see what's happening. And, like, I want to be clear.

I want to be fair to the filmmakers. Andy Machete Christina Hotson. There are things about this movie where I'm like, I see what you're trying to do. I think some of the speed force when he runs,

I'm like, this is cool. I thought the Batfleck bridge scene was cool. Some of the humor, I'm like, okay, this is working for me. I think the big problem of it is that they're trying

to make an upbeat Zamey Flash movie within the frame of the dark and brooding Snyderverse. And it's every single time the movie is going to an area where it's going to be fun, it's going to be kinetic. It snaps back to this weird, oozy collection of just bad decisions. So it's hard for me to talk about what works because, like, there would be an action sequence

that worked for five minutes and then it would immediately revert back to shit that just did not work. And that's as nice as I can be about this movie. movie. Okay. So this is what I'll say. This is a good script. Like, this is a good

story and it's telling. So a lot of things worked about the movie for me. Number one, I thought the action in the film was really good. I thought Michael Keaton and his time in the movie, his cameo in the movie, his nice cameo. His role in the movie was pitch perfect.

I thought all of that stuff worked. I thought the movie had enough moments and Jomey and Steve were in there with me. I think the movie thought some of the things that were supposed to be funny were going to work better, but there were enough times where I laughed in the film to where I kind of felt like I was right there ready to laugh in the movie. I think the stakes of the movie work.

And when I say the stakes of this film, we keep talking about superhero movies where somebody's not necessarily having to save the world, right they're not saving the world that we're in in this movie they're saving a different world

right it's not like everything is going to crash down around us he's fixing a problem that he created thought that that worked

I liked Carol Zorrell in this film she didn't have enough to do but I thought her performance

she looked great the The fighting was great. And also, those two characters actually died. And I didn't expect that from this movie. I expected this film to put a bow on the end of a superhero movie. Seriously, I expected this film to put a bow on the end of a superhero movie, just like every other superhero movie kind of does.

And in this movie, the takeaway was, you can't win this fight. Like, you have to give this fight up. It's the only way. What a metaphor for this movie. But I'm serious. So to me, all of that stuff worked. The things that we're talking about that bring this movie down and make it less than the sum of a lot of things that really did work and were entertaining are some pretty

fundamental things. I'm not going to lie. There's some pretty fundamental things like the performance of the lead and at times the way the film looks. Okay. So, but I'll tell you, when I sat back and looked at this, I was entertained. I was into it. the parts that took me out of the movie

had more to do with what I feel like, you know, Ezra's limitations are than anything. But the movie built to something. It came to something at the end, even when I'm sitting next to Steve, even when I guess the dark flash, reverse flash like reveal, I didn't see that coming until we got to the point

to where it was time for that. And even Steve went, Steve is sitting right now. It was, oh, that's him from, he's an anomaly out of time. And I think in a film that's, that probably has a little bit more, that probably has a little bit more, it's a little bit more fine-tuned, that probably has a little bit more of a scalpel taken to it. That reveal actually really works, that Barry is up against himself. So I think a lot about the film worked. I just think some significant things didn't.

And I think a lot of people are probably attached to that. damn, why are y'all acting like this is a funeral, bro? Like, Jomey, you look so disappointed in life. Life's complicated, you know? It's tough sometimes. No, I'd agree with Van. I think I find, you know, as thrilling as it is to see Michael Keaton back in the role as Batman, it kind of just adds a notch above fan service for his return

because he ushers in a lot of ideas that both Berries can learn from and like, bounce off of. I think Supergirl's inclusion in this was actually like really refreshing and it's kind of a shame that I don't know like her future of whether or not we could see more of her is kind of in doubt because I genuinely thought that she was compelling. I just I think that like the things that worked the most were a were more or less the cohesion of plot and consequence. and I think that that is a good story worth telling. I just think that it overall might not. Positive quarter!

It's hard. It's hard. Fight scenes were very good. Jome. Conceptually. That's enough. I'm done. I really liked all the Batman stuff, the Ben Affleck, the,

Jesus Christ, Michael Keenah came, remember the names. That's how much. this movie has messed me up. Like, it was the cars or else stuff worked. Everything outside of the flash in terms of like superhero characters worked for me.

Even Gal Godot showed up. I was like, hey, there you go. Go get your money, girl. You know, respect. She out here getting this cameo chat, you know, between this, Shazam, spoiler for fast acts.

Gal China convince us. Galchana convince us, man. Look, gal is like Remember back when Facebook had the pokes? Yeah, way back in the day. Way back in the day.

And you would get that girl that you dated in high school or college and she would keep poking you. You know what I mean? Because you moved to LA now. I don't know if I can relate to this. You probably can't. But, but, but, but, but, but,

but gal is just poking us. Hey, I'm still here. Hey, I'm still here. don't take my movie I'm still here all right she's like that's what gal is doing she's popping up

he's like I popped up in fast X I can do this too don't take my movie all right enough in the enough for the whole Nile I know I shouldn't have said it please don't take my movie you know what I mean

that's that's what that's what galas gal is popping up galas do it working overtime she wants to be Wonder Woman more than the rock you could say I mean the rock is the rock is out of here the the cooked Yeah, it's over.

The rock is... Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. This is the Black Adam podcast. This is a fucking Flash podcast. Let's get back. All right, what action sequences stood out in the movie, Jomey? Oh, for me, I think

the thing that I enjoyed the most was the scene with where Batman, or Batman Michael Keaton is fighting the big tall alien dude from Man of Steel, and he puts the bombs on him a couple times, and they explode, and he's like ducking and weaving, and he's on his back.

And then he throws him off, then the last bomb goes off. I thought that was excellent. It's like pure Batman crack. I love that. Can I tell you guys something? That was cool. The entire scene of breaking Carozoril out from her imprisonment in Antarctica was dope. It was.

The only thing that did make sense is it's way too cold for him to have basically a sweater and a North Face jacket on. He would have needed something else. All right. But that entire. scene is great. That whole scene, that whole part of the movie, even is amazing. And here's the thing, like, we could talk about the CGI later or at a more dedicated corner

of this, but like, conceptually, the Supergirl, like, finally emerging in the sunlight and her healing and becoming back to full form. And that single one shot of, like, Batman calling in the jet to him Flash and Supergirl fucking everybody up like you can say how well that looked or not

but like as a concept that fucking worked that was great I genuinely loved that yeah I had to like some goddamn haters there's a lot of fun in there think about when Batman is batting it up you're talking about Batman batting it up

against the one of our Zod's minions but when you think about Batman batten it up beating up all of those guys in the silo. That was dope. All right. Let's wrap up positivity corner.

Didn't mind that. I didn't mind that. Yeah, like this too much. I can't keep washing this. I'm going to find some, we're going to find some more positive stuff. I'll be completely honest, right? The stuff with Batman with Keaton was really cool. But the stuff with Affleck, that beginning scene, with Affleck doing the chase scene,

we were a rod of a Ben Affleck movie. We really were. I wanted to watch a Ben Affleck. I wanted to watch a Ben Affleck. I wanted to watch a Batfleck movie right after that scene. I was just like, this is one of the best action sequences. That was cool. That was cool.

Pretty great. He's like, well, yeah, you're saving a building. I'm kind of saving the world right now. So, you know, priorities. Like, I like that. All that stuff is great, man. The movie had, the movie had some great action. I would even say that the two flashes at the end,

well, I wouldn't say, I'm telling you guys, the two flashes at the end trying to work together. Enough. Enough. Enough. Enough. Enough. I can't.

I can't. I can't do this. I've been on the bench. Coach benched me. This was positivity corner. Like, I let you all ride. We ain't lying like this. We ain't doing this, bro. It was fine. Like, you know, it was fine, man.

It was fun. No, guys. No. I'm with you, man. It was fun. It was fun. It was fun. To a degree.

Where was this energy? Where was this energy two weeks ago? Huh? What energy two weeks ago? It's almost June teeth. And we're talking about an Ezra Miller movie. Like, it was fun. It was fun while we were shit in all miles.

I can't with y'all right now. I really can't. I'm sorry. Ain't nobody shit on ours around around. Nobody's shit on mouth around. You keep bringing up old shit, bro. Like old, old, old. This episode is brought to you by Prime.

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and abdominal discomfort. I'm opening up Pandora's box here, but Charles, go ahead and tell us about Ezra's portrayal as Barry Allen. Y'all, I mean,

I really want to know what people saw in their portrayal of Barry Allen that had everybody acting a fool because you cannot

make this type of movie with someone who is playing Barry Allen the way Ezra Miller is playing Barry Allen. And that's me trying to be nice. And I don't even know why. Their Barry Allen is just twitchy

and grating and annoying. And in the beginning of the movie, the script and the direction is doing a very fantastic job of moving at such a fast clip that you're really like, you know what, it doesn't matter. Maybe they will settle into this role.

And at the time I have that thought, the flash travels back in time. And now there are two Ezra Millers. And just like in the real world, the only thing that's worse than one, Ezra Miller, oh my God. It's two as from this. You feel me? What? Okay.

So am I wrong? Am I wrong? Guys, am I wrong? at all. You're not wrong. Okay, so here's a deal. So let me tell you there's a version of this movie that's not just that I didn't just like that I loved. There's a version of this movie that I didn't like

that I loved, okay? And that version has a more capable lead. Agreed 100%. That version has a more capable lead. Obviously, you can't speak Ezra Miller's name without acknowledging all of the off the court, if you will, drama.

You can't. You can't speak Ezra Miller's name without thinking about everything that's been surrounding them for the last couple of years, going back some time now. But even if we silo all of that, and we just talk about just the performance here, they asked them to do too much because what they asked them to do it didn't quite seem that they were capable of. There's one scene, and me and Jomi and Steve talked about it, talking about when we were in the theater,

that illustrates the limitations of this performance. And it's the scene that's supposed to be the most meaningful scene in the movie. And it doesn't come at the end of the film. It comes, midway through the second act. And it is when the younger version of of Barry is jumping around the back cave

being annoying. And the older, more seasoned version of Barry is losing patience with him. The older version is supposed to be more serious, more heroic, whatever. The scene just completely doesn't work.

Yeah, when I say it doesn't work, you don't feel anything. As a matter of fact, to the point to where I was waiting for the resolution of the saying, okay, like, so what's, what am I supposed to take away here? Like, what's the deal here?

Like, what's the thing here? But there's not enough in the two performances either as the young Barry, which, by the way, there's some things about that performance that I did. Like, there's a really funny scene where he's first taking his,

where Barry Allen is first taking his powers out, I think that's a very funny scene. I think that's another very funny scene in the movie. But unless I'm looking at it wrong, Ezra just doesn't have it like that. I was on the big pick, and I said, if you had like a young Tom Hanks or somebody that could really ooze charisma,

vulnerability, and comedic timing, and that was really funny and really moving, like a Tom Hanks big type of situation. This movie is probably 10 to 20% better, maybe even 30. If you lay that on a performance like that, it just happens over and over and over again that Ezra's performance is so inconsistent that it just, not quite ready for the Robert Donnie Jr.

treatment, not quite ready to nail down the whole movie by themselves. Is Ezra a leading actor? Like, are they an actor that can be at the center of a movie because I always considered Ezra as more of a type of character role type of actor where it's like, I don't know if they have that thing. Like, let's be real. Superhero movie acting is different from real acting. And that's not to disparage superhero movies,

but you have to be, at least have some level of a movie star type quality where when the exposition gets heavy and the shenanigans start happening and the CGI is flying, you have a Robert Downey Jr. to ground you just, honestly, through force of will, of being such a charming person,

does Ezra have that quality to you as a leading actor? It would be hard to say yes right now. But I will say that there are other performers that over the course of them being the leads in movies have gotten better at it? Chris Evans, I would say.

Chris Hemsworth? Chris Hemsworth, absolutely. That have gotten better at that. I would say the issue with them here, with Ezra Miller here, is that there has been, the character of the Flash is betrayed by the infrastructure of the DCEU prior to.

There's not enough structure to build on, right? There's not enough there to build on. By this point, you would have thought that Ezra would have a handle on the flash. And they don't, okay? They don't. It's not quite funny enough. It's not quite heartfelt enough. it's a little bit grading, like you said.

It's all of those things. So perhaps in the future, you know, maybe, but like not right now. And the interesting thing about that is this particular type of movie is depending on the fact that the lead can do that. Yeah. Because you're giving us multiple versions of the lead. It's all swirling around the lead. It isn't necessarily like Spider-Man Homecoming where we have, they tried to do a little bit of that, but where we're dropped into the middle of somebody's world, and there's so much happening that what we need Spider-Man to do is connect the dots.

But we're getting comedy from there. We're getting great stuff from Vulture. We're getting all of this stuff. This movie really, really, really centers flash as the lead, and everybody else is tangential to the, to the, to the, story. Mint boys, your thoughts on Ezra. Man,

um, tough. It was tough, you know, because they spend all, a lot of the movie talking to each other, right? Like,

50% of the dialogue, most of the movie is them reacting. Some of it is, you know, not the worst thing I've ever seen. Like Van said, the scene where Barry, from the different timeline,

learns his powers is pretty, it's pretty interesting. Shout out to, you know, Nicola. or Nicolaus Coaster Waldo eating a pizza Jamie Lannister

For no reason I mean Was that him? I was like I was wondering I'm just like Is Jamie Lannister in this fucking movie?

What is going on? You know me might have been the area that it was like Hey bro you're gonna come down eat a pizza for a second and he was like sure why not

but nah it just didn't work and that sucks because that you can tell like through the script that that relationship that entire

back and forth was supposed to be the crux, the emotional crux of the movie. And, yeah, like fans said, when you get to that scene when they're the bad cave and Barry's trying to talk to other Barry, not only does it just not work, it just falls completely flat. And you're sitting there and it looks like you're watching community theater and you don't believe that these two people are really, I'm serious.

Like, it just, I watched it again last night and I'm like, dog, this falls completely flat. know how I'm supposed to relate. I'm not supposed to get engaged with this problem when I'm watching it and it just feels like two people are just like talking. Like I didn't feel any emotion. I didn't feel any weight to it. It falls completely flat. And when then you have to go forward in the movie when they're like, Brett Barry, man,

you can't do this. Her mom, it doesn't hit. It just doesn't hit. that is what that is maybe like you know different timeline eric stoltz does a better job but in this one it just doesn't just doesn't happen it's very true and it's tough to kind of square that with the center of this movie being very inconsistent in their performance because again man i agree like i see the version of this that is great and the part of it that needs to be better is that initial lead.

Because you could see sparks of it. You could see tiny little flashes, no pun intended to that little idea of brilliance of interaction, be it either comedy and not so much dramatic, but it's quite disappointing to know that this could have been a lot better if maybe somebody had a better handle on this. and that being said because there are again moments of not just competence but like ingenuity

in a lot of the movie that we see but like at the end of the day it falls flat on its lead and that probably is the biggest problem that I've had with this movie. My enjoyment of this film is the enjoyment of what was on the screen in terms of the superhero

shenanigans and all of that stuff I felt like the main threat of the movie, which was Barry trying to save his mom and realizing that he couldn't do it, that that worked. But one thing that didn't really work was like the interplay between the two berries. One of the berries on their own might have been okay.

But to have two different versions of Barry in the movie, their, the lessons they learned from each other would have had to have been akin to Iron Man and Baby Spider-Man, oh, I mean, you're a Spider-Boy, in Homecoming and the way that that worked, you know what I mean? But you just, you didn't have Tom Holland or, who also gets on my nerves, but you didn't have Tom Holland

or Robert Downey Jr. here. You didn't. So can I also push back on like, I agree. Like, here's the thing. I want to be respectful of all of the creators because none of them asked for this. Like, people spent years of their life making this. And because of various things that Ezra Miller has done that we have documented on a previous podcast, it sucks. This whole thing sucks. There are talented people working on this. I am not attacking them. But I don't think that this story works. I don't think, I think there are two major problems with the Flash. The first is the Flash is, the Flash is, afraid to be a flash movie. The flash, the biggest metaphor for this movie, and I've been saying this for months, is the flash skinning the carcass of Michael Keaton's Batman and wearing it around like a fucking warlord at being like, hey guys, like, you all remember Batman? This is, like,

yeah, I remember this. I'm just telling you all the flash. Like, dog, wait, what? Jesus Christ, man. Jesus, geez, whoa, Charles. Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. The whole, the entire thing when they're in the Batcave, and Young Barry is just like, hey, look at me. I'm making a new Flash costume out of this old Batman costume. I'm like, yo, what are we doing here? Is this a Batman film? Or is this a Flash film? There's no villain in this.

He's fighting Zod, a villain that barely worked in Man of Steel. This movie also plot-wise, plot-wise. Is this a time travel movie? Or is this a multiversal movie? I do. It is both. But it fails at both. Well, look,

well, here's the thing. Well, let's, let's come back to it. God damn it, Chuck Wagon. We're like, whoa,

let's come back. Let's answer a couple of questions here. Allow me to put, give me some theme music. Van Lathen, defense attorney. So I'll defend my client. Dun,

the flash here. Okay. So, number, one. Yeah, he used the suit that he had to use because he needed a superhero suit. He didn't take the carcass of Batman. That would have been taking the actual flesh off Michael Keaton's body, which by the way... That would have been more entertaining to watch if I'm being for real. Okay, come on now. You don't believe that. You don't believe that. Come on. So he has to have a suit,

so he needs to get a suit, so he uses Michael Keaton's suit. Cool, that's fine. By the way, most of these multiversal movies are multiversal slash time travel movies because most of them are grabbing characters out of different points of time. You know what I mean? For this film right here, it's multiversal in the sense that he creates a different multiverse, a different timeline when he changes something in the past. That was the whole spaghetti thing. That right there, we're in the realm of that. Right. Which, by the way, I think that metaphor works for...

But my question is, do they do it... Do they do it well? We are in an era where we've seen everything everywhere all at once, Spider-verse, No Way Home. We've seen movies do it well. This movie kind of lands the time travel, but not really. And then tax on a bunch of multiversal bullshit that we'll talk about at the end. And I left the movie being like, what did it say about,

time travel or the multiverse as a device. If you look at something like everything everywhere all at once, the multiverse tells you a bunch of things thematically about the story. This one seemed like its entire goal was to be like, hey, remember all these shitty movies that we made 20 years ago? We got some of the actors back. Not Christian Bale, but George Clooney is here. Okay.

So they, the movie does become an IP dump at the end, but I'll tell you why. you know, that's, I'm a man of a certain age, so I'll tell you some stuff later on. We'll get to that in a second. But look, the, to me, if we take every single different movie and what it's trying to say thematically

about time travel or the multiverse, right? And back to the future, the time travel, which almost, by the way, back to the future, you could argue that it's the first multiversal movie because we actually go into a diversion timeline where Bif Tannen has taken control of Hill Valley, okay, because he went back and got

the almanac. And you didn't have to undo that. Back to the Future is about destiny. That's a time travel movie that is about destiny. And it's about what you'll do to have the destiny that you think that you should have against the destiny. And like your relationship with your parents. And all of that stuff.

Loki is a love story across the, the multisional. multiverse, right? Like falling in love with the best parts of yourself is what Loki and Sylvie end up doing and all of this chaos. This movie here is about surrender. It's about surrendering to the life that you have and not continuously looking at the life that you want. All right? That even early, even early in the film, when the flash goes, uh, and this, this struck me as I as I ruminated on the movie a little bit, when the flash goes, I'm cleaning up the mess of,

I'm the Justice Leach's janitor while you go out and get to do this. He saved eight babies. Like, if you saved eight babies out of a collapsing place and a service dog, which that scene is bonkers. But if you,

if you saved eight babies and a service dog. And put one in a microwave, let's be right. And put one in a microwave, like barbecue the baby. if you did that, right, how could you possibly think that what you're doing isn't important? What he was doing wasn't important to him. It wasn't important to him, number one, because he couldn't save his mom,

and number two, because he looked at being a hero as being someone that's able to fix things and not just someone who is able to help. And to me, when you look at the movie throughout, at the end of it, he doesn't see. He doesn't save his mom. He just helps his dad. You know what I mean? He can't save any. Like the solution of the,

there's no solution. You're just doing the best that you can. And even that still at the end of the movie ends up changing things. So I think the time travel shenanigans and the multiversal shenanigans in this particular film, I think the difference with them here is they really don't mean anything. It was all,

it was all of that stuff. just to come back to the original spot that we were at. Now, you probably might have to be a little bit, do a little bit more to make that hit. You know, you want that to hit a little bit more, but I think that that's an interesting take on it. Everything else that we see, like the Avengers save, use time travel to save the universe.

In this movie, you can't, all of this happens that you couldn't save anything. I mean, to be fair, but it is, It is Barry's fault, though, which is also, like, tough because, like, the movie wants you to root for Barry, but because Ezra Miller is tough to root for in our own universe and fictionally as their portrayal of Barry Allen, when you realize the big twist, spoiler alert, that the villain of this movie has been Barry all along, I'm like, why, why am I rooting for this character? They're not likable when they're heroic. They're annoying. And now essentially they didn't doom Michael Keaton and Supergirl to death, but they ain't help, you know? I mean, the timeline more or less doomed them to death.

Hey, but Michael Keaton could have been eating, you know, SpaghettiOs out home and be like, hey, it's my time. Nah, yeah, you gave Batman his, you gave Batman his purpose back. Yeah, you brought him back. Yeah, you gave it. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. The purpose of Michael Keaton's Batman, an institution, one of your favorite heroes, man, is to die at the hands of CGI Michael Shannon

that I'm not even sure was on set for this movie for five seconds. Yo, Batman's fate is to die saving somebody. No, he, and the worst thing, the worst thing that can happen to Batman, listen, the worst thing that can happen to a guy like Batman is to die of old age, to die being not useful. Batman's made his entire life,

it's my opinion, Batman's made his entire life about being useful and saving people because that's the only catharsis that he has. That was sweet relief for him. Can we agree on this? Because we all love Batman,

we're all like nerds in the trenches. Would you say that Batman is at least in the top five smartest superheroes that we know of as a character? I only think that Rie Richards and maybe the comic book version of Black Panther not the Black Panther that they put on screen here who is like just kind of clever

but the actual smart you know Mr. Terrific maybe but yeah he's way up there top five maybe top three you're telling me that this Batman is going to die by Kamikazgiing his bat plane into some fucking Krentonian ships like that.

It was the last card that he had come on bro. Like you know God damn it now now I'm getting pissed off Did that hit for you, then? Did that hit for you then? Did that hit for you? It was the last card. He was the last card that he had. Remember, there's no Superman in this universe because if there was Superman in this universe, then this would be an easy fight.

Because Baddy would have jumped in there, pulled out the kryptonite and blah, blah, blah, we're out of here. But there's no Superman. He didn't know about Cretonians. He doesn't know about kryptonite. He doesn't know about anything. Oh, that's why he was crazy enough to fight one of them. So basically what? They yada yada yada a whole, like Gotham is safe now.

Everything's good in Gotham. I'm like, I want to see that movie. What happened in God? Gotham don't need Batman? Like, go-ah-law. Like, y'all wasn't like, wait, what did he just say? But look what happened to him after he no longer had a purpose, right? And also, something else about him is he had to,

he had to kind of become a forward-thinking Batman to think about, look, he talks about his parents and everything and why he's compelled to come back. I felt like all of that worked. I'm taking up too much oxygen. Jomi, what you got? I mean, to Charles's point, like, I'm not, I'm cool with Batman not needing, like, Gotham being cleaned up, you know?

Like, it's cool. It's fine. Like, I'm not really worried about all that. What bothered me the most upon a rewatch, and I don't know how much you guys thought about this. So, Barry's dad gets caught up because he was buying tomato at the store. And they're like, dog, you got to go to prison. We think he killed your wife. I don't know how the justice isn't.

over there. But he had to check out those tomatoes. No. Did he not buy them? I mean, probably didn't keep the receipt or something. No, but somebody had to check him out. Like no witnesses at the store? Yeah, there's no witnesses at the store.

Be like, did he get those tomatoes? I mean, it seems like a flimsy trial, for sure. I mean, it seems like they literally took him, put him in jail and said. I'll tell you what. The only reason why it doesn't make sense is because he's white. If you black, they got more than enough. his dad's going to the electric chair he's been put to death

you know what I'm saying like he's in a racial relationship and he killed his wife nah dog you're done like we're doing it's like this movie would have been basically he got game you know what I'm serious

like he's lucky to still be alive bro he's lucky to still be alive bro he's lucky to be alive honestly honestly this movie ended like with Flash's dad in the fucking court throw on the back Let me tell you another reason why they definitely white.

I'm a hero and stuff. If I know my dad ain't do it, I'm going to get my dad out of jail. Okay? I don't give a, I don't care what y'all say. We phasing through the walls. And like, I'm telling you, I'm going to think the flesh could just break his dad out and get him on an island somewhere. You got to remember. I'm going to get my dad.

I'm going to look at Bruce. I'm going to say, look, Bruce. You break the law all the time. Don't try to act better than me. Motherfucker. All you do is break the law. I mean, to be fair, I would have been, I would have been, if I was Barry, I'm like, dog,

I watch Batman v. Superman, dog. I saw how many motherfuckers you killed in that shit. You're killing people. You're killing people. Yeah. Just break them out. Spring them. Oh, wait.

Also, can I just say positivity corner? Let's rewind very, very quick. I will say, shout out to the creators. I did think, like, they got some things about the Flash super right, like the vibrating through the walls, that shit was fucking sad. That was cool.

And when they zoom in on the molecules and they're just like rubbing through, I'm like, that's great. There was a few things that were, that were slick. I can't hold you. The scene was great. And the scene where he thought he had his powers, but he was just bringing around. And he's doing the fucking running shit. That was funny.

I can't hold you up. That was funny. That's all I'm going to say positive. I just want to like that. You'll be reminded of a few things. Oh, look at, look at, look at Charles coming around on the movie. He loves it. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Trust me. We got some, I'm saving up. juice, you know? I'm like LeBron in my hater, in my hater phase. Like, I can't go for a full two hours. I got to pace myself. Um, I'm going to give Charles a clear on into CGI. I'm just going to go ahead and say, it's indefensible.

So I'm not going to have very much here. Uh, Charles, this has been something that you've been on with CGI. You're like a a watchdog of CGI. Wait, what was it, dude on Instagram who would like check all the fake watches?

Dog, this movie, this movie, if we're using the watch metaphor, this movie looking at it is like when Ace Hood's fucking Bezell off at the BET Awards. Oh my God. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, this is like, here, I get it. Like, I want to say this. I get it, baby. This is a capitalist society. You spent $220 million on this movie.

I understand. You need to get as much blood from the stone as possible. You need to go out. Your lead cannot promote this movie. So you got to pay a bunch of people to say a bunch of fucking fake ass shit. But you're telling me that nobody saw the CGI in this movie and said, y'all, what the fuck are we doing? The director of this movie is very, very talented. But he showed his ass recently when he tried to claim, hey, the CGI looks like that app on purpose.

because we're seeing this from the viewpoint of the flash. Dog. Hold the L. It's fine, bro. It's fine. I've watched a lot of superhero movies in my life that look like dog shit doo-doo. Okay? And we're fine.

We live with it. We can live with it. But y'all try to look me in the face and tell me that this shit don't look ugly. The end where they are in the multiverse shit, where he's running, and we have to see Kara get fraged for 15. fucking minutes, all right? It looked terrible. There are moments in this movie

where the CGI literally looks like rubber suits. Did they call George Clooney and need to get his advice on how to do this shit? It was terrible. And I just don't know how anybody could look at this and be like, this was the greatest superhero movie ever.

Sorry, that's all I'm going to say. Okay, so here's the thing. The CGI had to be on purpose. So it had to be. Why do you think it had to be on purpose? It had. Okay, so look, you guys, I remember when the Matrix reloaded came out, right?

And there was this one part in the Matrix Reloaded, everybody was like, well, yo, this is going to change everything. The Burley Brawl, remember that? Yes. Where it was Neo against like 1,500 Agent Smiths. Okay. What?

At the time? Nigga, no. I don't get the fuck what you're talking about. You was a baby. I was, like, you was a baby. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, He was a baby. How old were you when you saw that shit?

I was like 14. Okay. Yeah, I was getting ready to leave college. And I was looking around like, hey, bro, I'm not going to lie, man. And remember, I'm like, this looks like a cartoon. Like, I'm like, this looks like a cartoon, man. Even then, I was like, this doesn't look right to me. Like, it doesn't.

Now, Neo flying and grabbing them off of the top of the thing, that was different. But the burly bra got to a point where it was just like straight cartoon shit. This is kind of, this is what kind of what, and the scene went on for a long time to do that. Anyway, not the whole burly braw, but parts of it where, like, it got like thousands. When there were thousands of them, it was, it got a little shaky. Yeah. So this movie looks like that at the end, straight up. It looks like it's the exact same time.

Okay. I mean, I'm just going to be honest with you. They had to have done it on purpose. It had to have been, it doesn't, okay, so listen, it doesn't matter. Whether or not, God damn it, Jomber. You can't convince me. Man, there's literally, there's no combination of words in the English dictionary that you can use to convince me that they did this on purpose. Why would you purposely put up?

I see PS2 graphics better than that, man. It has to be on purpose. So, wait. Let's be real. When I say that it has to be on purpose, I mean, it had to have been a purposeful decision made either from a budget stamp, or from a narrative standpoint. There's no way that they rendered that the best that they could. After Avengers Endgame had all of those people on screen together.

And after all of that and thought, this looks like that. They had to have made a purposeful decision. Or at least a tacit acknowledgement to be like, this is the best we got. They had to have. There's no way. It doesn't even look lifelike. They had to say, hey, we're in this different dimension where everything looks kind of off. and this is how the people look there.

They had to have done that. I'm not saying that it looked good because it didn't. It didn't look good. But I believe him when they say it. Doesn't that make it worse, though? If that was a choice, somebody had to step in like, hey.

Listen, a lot of choices were made here. And this is kind of tangential to it. So I just want to connect it. Like, I understand, man. It's capitalism, baby. I understand. you have to sell this movie. But what the fuck are we doing,

resurrecting the CGI zombie face of Christopher Reed? That shit looked terrible. Like it actually, like, I was actually, like, this actually like hurts because I'm like, this is, of course,

what Hollywood does when Fast and Furious, Mandalorian, we stand up like, yeah, we want this. We'll da-da-da-da. Like, Van, you have to be real, man. There was no reason

that Christopher Reed need to be. this movie. All right. So this is my, this is probably the biggest problem I have with the criticism movie. This one part. This one thing. Okay. So if we want to have a conversation about them not having a narrative function in the movie, I think that's fair. Right. I think it's fair to say there was really no reason to have them in the movie other than the show other stuff. It was fan service, right? I can make that same argument about the Illuminati in a multiverse of madness. And I would agree.

Okay. So we know, so I say that to say that we know that sometimes that happens. Okay. But I would say that the moment that we de-age Leia and put her in Rogue 1, this was the road that we were on. I'm just serious. You're right. You're absolutely right.

I'm saying as fans, we are as much to blame because I cried in the theater watching Fast and Furious and being like that's my man I didn't get to say goodbye to him like I get it when Luke comes out

in the Mandalorian and we're all like this is amazing like this is weird to blame so I'll say this is what I'll say about that if I'm did Paul Walker die during the production of the film

or was it before they... It was during. Because they had, they had filmed some of his scenes. Okay, so, so that is different. Okay. Like, that is, that is, that is different. And that, that is different.

That's like Brandon Lee, kind of in the crow. Like, that's a little different. No, what I'm saying is I'm not comparing. I'm saying as an audience, when we were like, this is fine when it happened to Paul Walker, because we needed that.

Like, I needed that. I invested a lot of this. Hollywood, Hollywood is not an altruistic business. they saw that shit and they're just like, we're going to use this again. Like, I'm not blaming Fast and Furious. I'm blaming the fact that like the Hollywood system is going to do what they're going to do to make money. Right.

So this is what I'll say. And it is a capital, it is a decision driven by capitalism. I don't see it being that much different than some of the other things. You know, Luke Skywalker comes back. He's young, Mark Hamel. But even more so to the point I'll say this. I said this on the big picture. and me and Sean had to go back and forth about it,

but I'll say it again here, because here is where, you know, I really need to say it. I was moved by the Christopher Reeve thing, and it's impossible for me not to be. It's impossible. It's just not going to, it's that easy when you're dealing with me.

It's that easy. Bro, let me, just Charles real quick. I'm not saying anything. I'm just surprised. I'm not saying it. I know, I know. I'm just being honest with the audience here. Man, I was a kid, bro.

And, you know, I had a, friend, like a real friend, like an actual friend. And Christopher Reed Superman was like my friend. He was a friend of mine. He wasn't just like a, like even like every other thing I saw Christopher Reeve in. He was the first actor, him and Eddie Murphy, he was the first actor that whenever I saw him and anything else, I watched him because I'm like, that's Superman. I just was hoping to a wink or something.

Superman. He was like my pal. When my dad would be like, yo, Superman's coming. Man, you need to wake up. You don't want Superman to see your room messy. Like, that was my thing. And that's weird. And it's, you know, it's weird to have a white dude be like that. And it's all of those things that people are going to say right now, it is. Because there people are, oh, man,

a white man friend. What kind of shit going on? What is this different strokes? You know, but it's like, but it's like, you know, all of that stuff, right? all of that stuff. And then I remember, you know, it's in the 90s one day

and he gets hurt. And then like he's in a wheelchair. And I'm like, wow. And I'm looking at it. And my dad goes, son, that's life. That's life.

Him flying around on the screen, that wasn't life. What happened to him and having to overcome that, that's life. That's what you're going to be up against losing, getting to the highest heights of your life and then having to overcome things that you never thought

that you would when you were doing something that you loved, all of that stuff. He's like, that's life. And I learned a lesson from watching people around me go through the things that they went through and also from watching people on the screen go through the things they went through about life. And I never thought I would see him fly again.

And for a second, he did. And I know that it's shitty, that they know that there's a group of kids who feel that way. And I know that it's fucked up on some black mirror type weirdo shit. You know what I'm saying? And it shouldn't be done. But the only reason why

I didn't, you know, and I'm in my old man crying phase as well, the only reason why I didn't tear up is because Steve is so toxic that I didn't want to show any emotion around him. Steve, did you laugh during that part? No, I didn't. He slapped his knee hard, though. No, I slapped my knee when I saw Nicholas Cage. I didn't slap it when I

saw Christopher Reeve. By the way, the Christopher Wings. So the Christopher Reeve thing, so let me say something. The Christopher Reeve thing is a cheap stunt. I'm not even denying it. I just, I was five, y'all. So can, bro, don't say that's fine. So can I ask this, man.

But here's the thing. Everything you said was so beautiful and so hot. And this is the thing that actually bothers me. Where it's just like, there are millions of people who feel like you. Yeah. Everybody knows that. Everybody making this movie knows that. If you are going to break, like, whether I think that you should do this or at all is not the conversation.

I don't think you should do it. But if you're going to as a filmmaker and as a studio and as a franchise, you have to be like, are we setting this reveal up in the best way possible? Is this going to mean something for the story, for these characters, for the people in the seat? Or is this just an easy way to capture? And I felt like they did not honor the memory of Christopher Reeve because like it looked like shit. Like it was, it was tough watching this like ghoulish figure that kind of looked like Christopher Reeve for five seconds of screen time. I was like, was that worth it?

Was that like, to me it wasn't. I would say the same thing about Nicholas Cage, dog. Really? Like here's the thing. You cannot make an entire multiversal movie, right? This is the problem. There are so many shitty, shitty, shitty DC movies in the coffers. You can't make an entire movie where you're like, Dan, we ran out of the good movies

and the people who are in the good movies don't want to be in this one. So how about we just asked Nicholas Cage to be a weird TGI dude, which is a reference to a Kevin Smith podcast about a Tim Burton movie that was never fucking made? You know why No Way Home Works? Because people like those Spider-Man movies. You know why Spider-Ver works? That's not true at all. people like the amazing Spider-Man too no

it's the same hold on hold on hold on it's the same fucking member berries let's not get on a high horse now no no no let's be clear let's be clear it's the same fucking member berries just with just with a little bit more potency no we're not doing that you know

don't get on your high horse now come on like right so let's be clear how many Spider-Man live action movies have there been there was three Toby McQuire to Andrew Garfield's, and at that point, two Tom Holland movies.

We were watching the third. So that is seven, right? Seven, yeah. People only really, really hated two of those. I don't even think they hated them. They just didn't like them. They didn't like them. Now, the problem with the Flash is,

it's a company trying to be like, hey, yo, look at all of these, not great movies, but movies that we made. And I'm just like, y'all didn't have enough characters. You had to get Nicholas Cage out of his sleep to do this weird CGI thing that five people

in an audience will understand. That's what time we're on. So this is what I'll tell you. I will say two things. Number one, once again, old man, van, drop it, drop it. Oh, my little baby. I haven't heard their voice

since so long. But, okay, so I will say this. Number one, that, that, to say that it's coming from a Kevin Smith podcast where he talked to, you're showing your age just a little bit.

No, whoa, I'm saying that most people, like how it became viral. Like, I know the story of like, the timber in John Peters, Spider-Mitt,

like the spider fucking shit. I was on the internet. Yeah, yeah, but fuck those people. Because, like, it's like,

that is one of the great in comic book history, if they are a great what-ifs. It's one of the great what-ifs. I'm not saying it would have been a great movie. movie, but it's one of the great what-ifs. Superman lives is one of the great what-ifs in real-life comic book lore history, right? It's, I literally remember where I was where, when I heard the news on being reported on

the news that Nicholas Cage had been, um, that had been cast as Superman. I remember we were watching Conner going, yeah, like he could do it. Like blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then because there wasn't, for me at least at that time, up to the. minute internet tracking of stuff, it just kind of went away. And I was like, oh, what the hell happened? Then I started getting around and digging into it and you started kind of figuring it out. So for me, like seeing him lays the big spider that John Peters wanted, I was kind of just like, okay, at least I got to see 10 seconds of it. I was kind of cool. Here's the thing. I'm honestly,

I'm more of a fan of the Nicholas Cage thing than I am of the Christopher Reeve thing because, you know, one didn't happen and one very much did happen. And we're not selling the memory of Nicholas Cage here. I'm just not let you all know that Jomey has completely fucking tapped out of the podcast. Like Joe's Jomey. I just, I don't understand. Back and forth and all of this stuff.

Jomey has completely tapped out of the podcast. I don't because I hated this part. Like I, I hate it this part. Oh, thank you. Like I, I, I don't understand. The thing that does that, that, that, that, I don't want to say piss me off, but that I can't wrap my head around,

that my brain cannot connect two, like, nodes together on, is that there are Superman actors who are still alive. If they wanted to do the whole cameo thing. Also, Jomey, there are flash actors that are still alive. Great Guttston found dead in a ditch, apparently,

because he ain't in me at all. They are still alive, right? They just throw you with, like, look at all this stuff from the ancient, when the Egyptians and the Romans were still alive. Like, dog. What are we doing? I'm serious.

I'm serious. Like, it's for, it's literally for Van and people like Van. That's it. I'm in a theater. I'm sitting down. I get through. Were you missing Dean Kane?

What do you want? D.K., he can see. He can stay where he at. We know how about D. D.K. He's still alive. Like, dog. Tom Willing is still alive.

Hey, are you guys fucking out of your shit? If you're going to continue, or if you're going to choose, between whether to which Superman you're going to cameo to get a rise out of the crowd and it's between fucking Christopher Reeve and Brandon Ross. I love

this movie Christmas. Like, like whatever. Like whatever. Like whatever. But I'm saying there's no, come on, man. You couldn't have the coolest. You couldn't have called Michael B. Jordan and be like... That would have been hot. That would have been hot. You know what I mean?

That would have been hot. I'm watching and I'm like, who is four? Really good. You could have a thing Hey you know what This is the problem with you kids You know what? Fuck it It ain't for you

I've been doing this longer than you How about that? It ain't for you then It's all kinds of shit When we talk about Spider-Man Homecoming And they have the prom And all of that

I can't relate to that shit But I watch it I watch it all the time I watch the shit Some of the shit ain't for me I watch Miss Marvel I'm 43 I don't know

what you expected. I watch Miss Marvel and everybody, it's fine. It's cool. I watch it. It's a lot of this movie is some Disney XD bullshit. But I got to watch that. Just chill out. Like, I never got to see Nicholas Cage.

I don't know. You know what I'm saying? I get it. It's not for you. It's for me and a couple of other people. Cool. The same way Bruno's hijinks and Miss Marvel is for you. That's all right. It's It's so niche.

They're like, man, it's for the kid, it's for to kill them. Like, dog. And I'm saying, I'm like, no, this don't work, bro.

Nah, man, keep that thing pushing, bro. Can we, can we, joey, since, since you've been a little

quiet at this spot, can we go to your corner of our, yeah, now, it's time now. It's time. This is the tired of shit that piss me off.

Let's go. I'm, I'm ready. I'm ready, bro. So, okay, it's called Gas Bill.

I'm going to read comment made about about the flash from a notable public figure, and we will rate it on a scale from one to 12, whose comments were the most egregious. One is, all right, cool, like I had to stand away and make the comment,

and 12, it was there for like, yo, there's way too much gas. We talked about this for almost for years now on this podcast, about how the flash was getting insane gas over the last few months. When they went to CinemaCon, Tom Cruise, people have host of people come out and said that this film was one of the best not only comic movies,

but just movies that we will ever see in our lifetime. And after seeing the film, I think all four of us, no matter how we feel about the film, can't agree. As it's not the truth. So we're going to go look back at some of the quotes, and we're going to see who put the most gas. on the film. Okay. I'm going to start with our guy,

you know, directed Guardians of Galaxy Volume 3, James Gunn. This is from Variety. James Gunn said, and I quote, I will say here that Flash is probably one of the greatest superhero movies ever made. All right, so you want to know I give James Gunn a pass here, okay? what are you going to do?

You know what I'm saying? Like, you got to push it. The check cleared. The check's cleared. You know what I'm saying? Nah. He's the new headed DC films.

Nah. He was lying up a fucking storm, but when the check clears, who of us have it? You know what I mean? Like, so it's bad. It's bad.

He was lying. It's cap. But I understand. It's one of the best DC EU movies of all time. Wow. Just had to trip over. Yeah. Like the bar.

It was on the floor. Suicide Squad. Oh, no. Like, come on, what are you doing? James Gunn should be a little ashamed of himself. I'm gonna give James Gunn a 10 on the, on the on the gas bill just because it's, he had to say it.

Regulatory capture, he had to say it. So out of 12, you give him a 10. Out of 12, I give him a 10. All right, I give him a 10 as well. It's bad. It's not a, 12, but it's pretty bad. It's pretty bad.

I agree with it to. Tom Cruise. Tom Cruise said they told a reporter reported that Tom Cruise had seen the movie and loved it so much that Nicole called the movie's director, Andy Mochetti, to rave about it. Everything you want in a movie. And this is the kind of movie we need right now was what Cruz said, according to Insiders. I'm giving that an 11 on the gas bill. That's a 12.

That's a 12. I'm not going to say it's a 12 because I think that this is coming from, if Tom Cruise got out in front of this and was like, got in front of the cameras being like, this is the kind of movie we need right now. But like a report of a report of cold call. I'm like, come on. We can just have people say this.

Yeah. I was going, I was about to go because it was Cruz. That's actually a really good point, Steve. All right. I did. I will, that was such a good point. The guy that's keeping the lights on for two movie studios. It's a nine now.

It's a nine. I was actually going to give it a 12 too because it's Tom Cruise, but he didn't, he didn't put, he didn't put his whole foot in it. Yeah. If he got on Instagram, it's like the Flash is the movie we need right now,

then it's like fucking a thousand on, yeah, right. Yeah, that's a good point, Steve. Sorry, David Zazlov is next.

What did he say? David Zazlov, um, the HOTO reported that, you know, it had been receiving some of the highest scores at test screening since Christopher Nolan's Dark Night movies and execs and creatives

believe that they have critical and box office sit on their hands that live up to those scores. I don't know how I can score this because I hate David Zazlov right now. It's a 12th. Because here's a thing, the minute you bring in Nolan, it's just like, dog.

It doesn't get any gassier. You know? You know what I'm saying? It's like me after some Brussels sprouts. So I'm saying? Like, that's tough. That's tough. That's tough.

I didn't know what was happening to me. Like the first time I really put Brussels sprouts back into my diet, I thought something was wrong with me. Like I went to the doctor, I'm like, yo, like this for the last couple days. It's really final. Yeah. And the doctor was like, he's like, you know, you can't come here every time you get gas, man.

Like, I have people to help. And I was like, all right. All right. Last one, Stephen King. I got in advance. He tweeted this. This is like the way you could go check his Twitter. see this.

I got an advanced screening of the flash today. As a rule, I don't care a lot for superhero movies, but this one is special. It's heartfelt, funny,

and eye-popping. I loved it. Give him a 97. I would agree that, like, this is fucking high. This is high. It's insane.

The Stephen King of it all is really that's why. That's why. That's why. Because it's Stephen King, I trust you, dog. You know what I'm saying?

I like the, I like the movie. I like the movie, but yeah, Stephen, he's got to be a 12th. That's, yeah, the gas on this, put on this movie was insane. I mean, we didn't have, we don't have time to, like, you know, mainly going on a gas bill. But Edgar Wright was like, man, he went on, I don't want to say IG or something, and he was like, got to see the flash. That was great.

Really excited, man. You know, it's going to leave a big grin of audience faces when it opens next month. Is it possible that these guys are doing this also just to keep people going to the movie theaters? They need this movie to be successful. It is possible because that's the consensus. I don't know. I don't know the desperation for needing people needing to go to the theaters.

I feel like that might have like fully dissipated after Top Gun Maverick. Super Mario Brothers and Spider-Verse are going fine. Yeah. I think it's more of like movies are back now and like let's just keep the train rolling. I tell you who didn't have a lot of stuff on the line was all the people that lied to me.

You know who you are. Like they've been telling me this for the last. amount of times. Like, you know, I love you guys. But y'all got me out here looking like a whole bitch. And, and I'm, I look, I was really just telling you what they were telling me, guys. I'm not seeing the movie. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But I thought it was whatever. But I liked it, though. I'm like that. I love the Flash. I love it. All right, let's get to the midnight meter because this will be interesting. Because before we go, I know you got to go, Van. But just to be real, man, we should all.

tell everybody what we gave Spider-Man into the Spider-verse. We just keep everybody honest. We just got to keep everybody honest. Bro, why? We got to keep everybody honest. Bro, why are we bringing up Spider-Man into the Spider-Verse?

No, you know what? You know what? You know what? You know what? It's okay. It's okay. It's right. It's right.

People are dark in the smoke. My entire, my entire, my entire, I gave it a nine. My entire Midnightverse career is a forever changed. It is. It is. You guys know what the Midnight Meteor is. We rate the movies, one out of ten with scores of 11 and 12 being reserved for game-changing, genre-defining movies.

Okay. I liked this movie. Obviously, we're not going to 11 or to 12. I liked this movie. I'm reserving the right to mulligan it later. Okay. I got to go with a seven. I got to go with a seven.

And let me tell you why I'm going with a seven. All right. Record scratch. As much as I liked the movie to rank the movie, I have to be honest about even the problems of the movie. My Midnight Meter ranking is not all about just about how much I like the movie. It's about what the movie is as a film. Because remember, there are all kinds of movies that have major problems that I adore.

you know, if I'm being honest and not getting in my heart about this, this movie is a 7 out of 10 and that's probably the highest score that is going to get here on the midnight meter anyway. But I liked this movie. I had a lot of fun.

I think a 7 out of 10 is a good score. I'm giving it a 7 out of 10. All right, you have to get out of your, man. It's a 3. It's an easy 3. Like, it's lucky I didn't give it a 1. It's lucky I didn't give it a 1,

but there are things about this that were. So 3. I'm giving this a five. Y'all are in C. I'm giving this a five. There were more things that worked that I thought would. Yeah, in hindsight and a little bit of time, I'm like there's still some glaring problems that I can't,

I can't shake. Yeah. Got to agree with Steve. I'm going with the five. the stuff that I liked was just like a small part of the film and majority of the film the biggest parts of the film

like I mean don't even work is like a baseline it just I disgusted me to no end like I have to yeah to hell with all of you fun averse weirdos here you know 7355

7 3 the Mulligans, my guy. Five. You can't wait to Mulligan, listen to a four. You're going to lose the Mulligan so bad this year, van. I don't know what's happening to your midnight. I'm not going to be honest with you. My midnight meter on this movie might go up.

Oh, gee. Yeah, see, no, man. Let's wrap this up, man. Wrap this fucking shit up. That's not, you're not serious. You don't believe that. You don't believe that. You know what I'm doing?

I'm bringing integrity back to the midnight meeting. Wow. Like, the midnight meter is, has become the dick riding meter. Actually, I can't say that because I gave Major's Resurrection at 8. See, here's the thing. So here's what happens when we do the Midnight

Meeter or the Midnight Mulligans, we give you a shot to Mulligan Matrix Reserctions every time. That's what we're going to do. Every year, we're going to be like, hey, man, how do you feel? I would never, ever, ever mulligan the Matrix Resurrections

because I am the most controversial Midnight Meera Ranker ever. And it's going to stay that way. You know, I zig when it's time, I'm the Zach. I'm the Charles of the Midnight meter. That's who I am. You really? Don't you have some verb? I am. I'm the Charles of the Midnight meter. All right. That's a wrap. Follow us

on socials, Instagram, Instagram. Sunday, Mid-Edition, we'll hit you guys with their thought on Pixar's latest movie Elemental. You guys got me excited. I can't wait to see it now. Then we're going to be your full week of Secret Invasion Extravaganza. Wednesday, Midnight Boys, Instant reactions on Secret Invasion.

House of R. comes back Friday. deep dive. We're back into the regular flow of the ringerverse. It's reactions and deep dives. We're there. Credits. Our producer is one of the best. Steve, the architect, Alma. Jumea Dinaran is on socials. Hashtag Jomillion miles an hour. Ooh! I like that one.

I like that. Additional production from Arjuna Ram Gapal. Charles, take us out. Be respectful. The Flash had as much gas as Van Lathan. And there's nothing about this movie that you can save. And despite what the Flash wants you to do, please don't place any babies in your microwave.

Bro, I'm telling you, Charles, you're Dr. Umar Holmes. Like, wow, like, we keep, like, you, you, you, we keep bringing up, old shit. We're talking about this movie, which didn't have, to be, I look, to be way too much like Drake to be Dr. Umar. You know what I'm saying? Okay. All right.

He's looking at my family should be like something. Dr. Wait, wait, wait. Did you just drop the cap, stopped the cap on him looking like drink? Yeah. Skit tone. We have to say skin tone.

What was that, Steve? Steve, Steve, that's a, I got to be honest with you, bro. That's a transnational. Okay. That's a transatlantic. That's a transatlantic. You don't get to be.

I'll take that. I'll take that. Oh, man. You don't get to be in the conversations about who he was like. Unprovoked. He played that unprovoked. Nobody asked. Like, oh, whoa, whoa, it's okay.

Steve, do us the favor. Tell us which black guy Charles looks like. No. Okay. All right. All right. Okay.